Broken Play

by Tracey Ward

  “I don’t have CTE,” I warn Colt severely.

  He lets that go, but only because he doesn’t want to fight. Not about that. Not right now.

  “I don’t know what you have going on, man. I’m not a doctor,” he admits reluctantly. “You don’t exactly paint a clear picture of it for anyone, but whatever it is, it’s not going to get better by ignoring it.”

  “I’m not ignoring it.”

  “Pretending it isn’t there, then. Same thing.”

  “I know it’s there,” I insist roughly, my throat clenching tight. “But I’m handling it.”

  “How?”

  “None of your fucking business, that’s how.”

  Colt’s face doesn’t change, despite the acid I’m flinging.

  “Whatever you say, brother,” he concedes gently.

  I run my hand over my face. It feels clammy. Sweat soaked. Am I sweating? There’s no air in this damn box. “Look, Colt, I’m sorry, alright? I’m tired, man. I just wanna go home. I don’t wanna talk about this shit anymore. It’s depressing.”

  “I’m glad you’re gonna be playing again.”

  I lower my hand slowly. “Yeah. Me too.”

  “That Super Bowl win wouldn’t feel as sweet without you on the field.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But when it’s over, you need to quit,” he tells me matter-of-fact.

  I freeze, my eyes stuck on the airline logo stitched in red across the back of the seat. “I don’t know if I can do that. I’m not done with the game, you know?”

  “I know. But the game, Tyus… she’s done with you.” He bumps his shoulder against mine. “You feel me?”

  I feel like crying. I feel like throwing up. I feel like screaming, ranting, running, raging. I feel like a thousand things that can’t exist all at once and my body is about to boil itself into a puddle of confusion on this dirty ass floor at the mere thought of never playing football again.

  “Tyus?”

  “I feel you,” I choke out. I tap my fist against my chest once. Twice. I’m hollow inside. Empty as the pockets being eaten into my brain. “I feel you.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  MILA

  October 31st

  Cashlin Greene on Holmby Hills

  Los Angeles, CA

  “You’re late,” Daddy scolds mildly, pushing the heavy door open for me.

  I shrug out of my jacket as I hurry into the foyer behind him. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not me you need to apologize to. Did you get your homework done?”

  “I promised I would.” My voice bounces off the marble floors under our feet. It climbs the winding, white staircase to ricochet off the vaulted ceilings overhead. I take a deep breath, letting the citrus scent of the house sink into my lungs. The whole place smells like lemons. It always has and I have no idea why. Mom doesn’t allow air fresheners. She doesn’t believe in anything but potpourri. That’s her Southern showing through.

  “What classes are you taking this term?” Daddy asks, leading me toward the dining room.

  “Business. Math. More business. English,” I drone. “Business.”

  “You don’t sound excited.”

  “About what? Business?”

  “You want to run a company but you don’t want to learn how. It’s not very inspiring, Mila.”

  “I don’t want to run Greene Steel,” I remind him.

  He nods like he understands but he doesn’t. “Right. Right. You want to run a football franchise.”

  “If Keith Wilton can do it, so can I.”

  “Keith Wilton is a fucking idiot.”

  “Language!” Mama shouts from the kitchen.

  “Sorry, Norah!” He looks down his nose at me. “Don’t measure yourself against an idiot. It’s not a solid benchmark.”

  “Who is?”

  “Me.”

  I smile. “You’re an impossibly high standard, Daddy.”

  “All the more reason to reach.” He guides me toward the dining room with his hand at the small of my back. “School will get better. Give it time.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “No. I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but life is pretty boring.”

  “It didn’t used to be,” I mumble.

  He doesn’t answer, which is fine because there’s nothing to say. What I said is awful but true. We could talk about just how true, but we’re out of time. We’re in the dining room where Mama is waiting.

  She smiles when she sees me. It’s subdued but it’s real. It’s better than it used to be.

  “You made it,” is all she says about my tardiness, her Southern drawl softening any annoyance she might be feeling.

  “I was working on a group project with some people in the library,” I explain, coming out from under Daddy’s wing to give her a hug. “It ran long. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” She squeezes me tightly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me too, Mama.”

  When she steps back, I get a glimpse of my future. Mama and I look a lot alike. Her hair isn’t as dark as mine, I got that from Daddy, but her eyes are the same. Her mouth. That gently sloping nose that first got me noticed by a talent scout when I was ten. She’s shorter than I am, about five-five compared to my five-ten, but she’s curvier. She’s a Marilyn while I’m more of an Audrey. Hepburn, not Catherine.

  “You look good,” I tell her. “Are you still going to hot yoga?”

  “No, I gave it up. I found something better.”

  “Better than sweating in a sauna full of strangers?”

  “Goats,” she beams, bypassing my sarcasm. “I’m doin’ goat yoga!”

  “What the hell is goat yoga?”

  “That’s what I asked,” Daddy chuckles, sitting down in his seat at the head of the table.

  “It’s what it sounds like,” Mom explains excitedly. She takes her seat across from him. “The class is on a farm and you go into this barn where they have all these goats.”

  “How many goats is ‘all these goats’?” I ask specifically.

  Mama shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. Six or seven. They roam free through the whole place while we do yoga, and the cutest thing is that they climb on you. One started trying to eat my hair. It was hysterical.”

  “It sounds it.”

  “Show her the pictures,” Daddy tells her.

  I look at him balefully as Mama pulls out her phone. He smiles back, smug as shit.

  “This one’s name is Roger,” she tells me, showing me the first picture. “He’s a ham. Look at those teeth.”

  “He’s the one who ate your hair, isn’t he?”

  Mama looks at me in surprise. “He was! How’d you know that?”

  “You can see it in his eyes. He’s a dick.”

  She reaches across the table to swat my arm playfully. “Stop it. Goats are sweet, Mila.”

  “That one isn’t.”

  Mama shows me six more pictures of six more goats, but they could all be the same goat for all I know. There’s one of her friend Susan with her ass up in the air and a goat on her back. It’s Mama’s favorite. I smile extra wide for that one. For her.

  When dinner is served, we slip immediately into what I loathingly refer to as Mila Mode. It’s like an interrogation but with scallops.

  “How was your Friday night?” Mama asks carefully but casually. It’s an impressive mix to pull off but she does it with ease. “Did you do anything fun? Do you have plans for tonight?”

  I lick my lips, savoring the tang of the salt on my tongue. Biding my time as I formulate my answer. Mama and I are like this lately; like a math equation. We’re a six-part story problem that I can’t always follow, and I rarely get the answer right. I don’t know when the train will get to the station. I just know she’ll probably resent it when it gets there.

  Right now, she’s not actually asking how my Friday was. She’s asking what I did on Friday night, working out the sum of my enjoyment. Where I
went, that’s simple addition. Who I went there with is more like division. It’s when you get into what I drank or what drugs I did, that’s when we hit multiplication. That’s when this gets complicated and I start losing track of all the other elements of the equation.

  I’ve never been very good at math.

  Or my mama.

  “No plans for tonight, no,” I confirm, giving them exactly what they want to hear from me – nothing. But inside my mind is swirling with so many somethings. Endless possibilities with dark eyes and a deep laugh that I can still feel under my skin. Calloused fingers gently caressing my earlobe that hums at the memory. He’ll be at Club 171 tonight. He asked me to come be his wingman, but he didn’t mean it. He wasn’t really inviting me. Still, it’s a free country. I could show up, and maybe—

  “It’s Halloween,” Mama reminds me, challenging me. “You’re not doing anything?”

  “I might go to a horror movie with Lonnie, but probably not. I don’t have any plans.”

  My first mistake. A small accounting error, but Mama spots is immediately. “Lonnie? I thought you two didn’t see much of each other anymore.”

  “We don’t. That’s why I was going to catch up with her tonight.” I shrug like nothing is set in stone because really it’s not. “I might just stay in my dorm instead. Catch up on some reading.”

  Stare at the wall. Wonder what happened to my youth?

  “How’s your roommate?” Mama asks.

  “She’s good. Always working.”

  She hums admiringly. “Such a strong work ethic with them.”

  I cringe, glancing at Daddy. He’s ignoring all of this. Didn’t even catch the racism Mama dashed on my salmon.

  “What’d you do last night?” she continues.

  “Not much,” I answer honestly. “I hung out at the dorm all night. There were some people partying so I offered to be the Key Master.”

  “What’s the Key Master?” Daddy asks, suddenly super aware.

  “Kind of the designated driver. Anyone who was drinking left their keys with me and I made sure they got home at the end of the night with cabs or Uber.”

  “But you didn’t drive them?”

  “No. I stayed in the dorm all night. Like I said.”

  Mama frowns at me before pouring the displeasure over her asparagus, leaving us both bitter.

  That frown is why I can’t figure us out lately. Her reactions don’t add up. I didn’t drink, I stayed home all night, I made sure other people were safe, and yet somehow I still did it wrong. I’m still a disappointment. It’s the remainders from all those years of living wild, worrying them sick.

  That frown is my comeuppance and it sucks.

  Saturday night dinner with my parents became a thing when I moved out in September to start school. Mama picked Saturdays because ‘they’re the easiest’, whatever that’s supposed to mean. The real reason she picked Saturday is because it’s a party night. It’s a night to go clubbing and drinking and dancing; all the shit I used to love. The shit that used to keep me out from Friday night until Monday morning. Sometimes Tuesday afternoon. The shit that had her worrying herself into an early dye job as she paced lines into her Persian rugs.

  The first Saturday I came home, she talked me into staying the night. Then she talked me into going to brunch and the spa with her on Sunday morning. It’s our thing now, just like the dinners. Half my weekend tied up tight under her roof. Daddy says it’s because she’s so relieved to have me back after that long, horrifying night in Dubai, but I don’t believe it. We both know it’s because she doesn’t trust me. She thinks I’m still partying. Still running wild. She’s still waiting for that call from the cops telling her to come collect my body, and I can’t be angry at her for that. I spent a decade cultivating that fear in her, pushing her to her limits until finally she broke. I can’t expect everything to be fixed in less than twelve months.

  After dinner, Mama reminds me about brunch. She gives me a long hug and disappears into the kitchen. I don’t know what she’s doing. It’s not the dishes, that’s for sure. She hasn’t put a hand to Dawn in thirty years. Maybe she’s watching Ronda clean. I bet Ronda is fucking loving that.

  Daddy and I migrate to the theater room, no discussion needed. The NFL isn’t playing tonight, but the NCAA is. USC is already decimating Colorado twenty-one to two when we sit down.

  “Damn Trojans,” Daddy grunts at the screen.

  Daddy hates Stanford.

  “They’re winning the PAC-12 South this year,” I needle him.

  “You think so?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I think UCLA is looking good this year.”

  “We’re unranked and USC is undefeated. You’re dreaming.”

  Daddy smiles. “Where’s your school spirit?”

  “I don’t have any. Not when it comes to football. We’re a garbage team.”

  “If you’re going to love a team, you have to love them even when they’re down, kiddo.”

  “And I do. Just not UCLA.”

  “Who’s your team, then?”

  “The Kodiaks.”

  Daddy laughs. “You’re a diehard.”

  “It’s how you raised me. I’ve lived and breathed the Kodiaks since I was eight. If you cut me, I’ll bleed yellow.”

  “UCLA’s colors are blue and yellow,” he points out conversationally. “Maybe you could spare a little of that blood for some Bruin love.”

  I smile, shaking my head sharply. “Nope. Not a drop.”

  “You’ve always been all or nothing.”

  “How you raised me,” I repeat.

  “I guess it is.”

  We sit in silence watching the game for a good ten minutes. Not much happens. The half is coming and Colorado is bogarting the ball, trying to stop Stanford from taking possession and running the score up any higher than it already is. When the clock finally runs out and the teams file into the tunnels, Daddy goes to the bar behind me to grab a drink.

  “You want anything?” he asks.

  A beer, I think longingly.

  “A water, please.”

  Daddy comes back with a bowl of chips, a beer for himself, and a bottled water for me. It makes sense, I’m underage, but this setup feels weird. I’ve been drinking beer and watching football with my dad since I was fourteen. He wanted me to learn to be responsible with alcohol. He drilled it into me hard that I should never drink and drive, and despite all the crazy shit I’ve done in my life, that’s the one thing I’ve never done. I spent the night on a seventh story fire escape in Aspen in the winter, but I didn’t drink and drive.

  I’m sure he’s very proud of me.

  “You’re really doing it?” I ask suddenly, surprising us both. I hadn’t meant to talk about this yet, definitely not tonight, but I can’t help it. It’s the only thing I’m thinking about more than Tyus Anthony’s eyes, and those fuckers haunt me almost every second of the day. “You’re really selling the team?”

  “Yeah,” Daddy answer immediately and honestly, like he was waiting for this because he probably was. He knows his daughter. “I’m really selling the team.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “I do.”

  He hesitates, glancing at me sideways.

  I don’t look back. I stare at the TV, watching a commercial for a leaf blower.

  He studies my profile for a long time before turning back to the TV. “You don’t need it, Mila. You can still love the team without owning it.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  Fine. School is fine. My friends are fine. My life, in general, is fine.

  But I don’t want to be fine. I want to feel better than fine.

  I want to feel incredible.

  “Please don’t do it,” I demand into the dark between us.

  Daddy is unmoved. “It’s practically done. I almost sold last year when we were two games away from the Super Bowl but I got greed
y. I wanted that first win with my name on it.”

  “You could have more than one. With Trey Domata at the helm, this is the start of their reign.”

  “I know. That’s why they’re going to go for a premium at the end of this year. The Kodiaks are like a flipped house. I bought them when they were broken down and practically worthless. Now they’re at their prime.” He lifts his beer to his lips. “It’s time to sell.”

  “I want them.”

  “You can’t afford them,” he replies plainly.

  That hurts. It’s so real and so messed up. Limitations are hard for me like that. I spent the last decade testing them, looking for them, but they’re hard to come by. In my life, I’ve rarely been denied anything, so when it happens it’s hard for me to process. It’s like a slap to the face to find out I can have everything, but nothing is mine.

  “I’ll get a job,” I joke halfheartedly.

  Daddy chuckles. “Working where? McDonald’s?”

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  He looks at me again. This time I meet his eyes, showing him I’m not entirely fucking around.

  He frowns as he reads my face. “Mila, be serious.”

  “I am serious. I want the team. I’ve always wanted the team.”

  “You’re too young.”

  “I’m getting older every day. Don’t sell yet. Keep them for five more years. Just until I finish school and I’m ready to take over.”

  “They might not be Super Bowl champs in five years.”

  “Give me a say in recruitment. They’ll be champions.”

  “Keith wouldn’t like you doing his job for him.”

  I snort derisively. “Are you kidding me? Keith will love someone doing his job for him.”

  “He wouldn’t like you doing it,” he clarifies.

  “Because I’m a woman?”

  “And my daughter. No one will take you seriously. I don’t want that for you.” He turns back to the game, shaking his head. “No, sweetheart. I’m selling. Keep up the modeling. There’s a career for you there. You can make good money at it. Your mom certainly did.”

  “I don’t want to be a model,” I tell him passionately, my temper rising. “I don’t want to start a clothing line. That’s not me. That’s Mama, that’s what she did, and that’s great for her, but it’s not for me.”